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Mar 31, 2014

Interesting article about how mobile made everyone "frenemies" and the internet of things will make everything worse - because every company from current giant to startup (self-perceived future giant in most cases) will want to own the customer relation and all the data. Please, dear companies, don't forget the consumers. And please, dear governments: Don't forget the consumers. I am convinced that all the data created by services used or products owned whould belong to the consumer, who can then "lend" it (import/export) to platforms and providers to do what they have to do. But my amazon clicks and recent purchases and my netflix playlist and my click path on bmw.com - all this should be mine. And if you promise to do something with it that will create value for me, the consumer: here, use it. On my behalf. Today, things are just upside down in this area.http://gigaom.com/2014/03/30/mobile-made-frenemies-out-of-everyone-and-the-internet-of-things-will-make-it-worse/

Read this open letter from the makers of the popular game "Threes". They wrote it because there is a more popular game called "1024", and a variant of this, "2048", is even more successful than the two... the story goes on. Thing is: If you have a really cool idea about an app, and the technology needed is not complicated enough, you won't have a first mover advantage for longer than, let's say, 20 days. Tough. http://asherv.com/threes/threemails/#letter

I am pretty sure that while I am having a hard time putting a slide together to describe this or that thing and selling this or that idea, a zillion other consultants had the same problem and somehow solved it, Some better, some worse, but we all created something. Why not share it? Take out the client logo. Replace numbers. Upload it, share it, benefit from other people's work. I would love to have that. Is the marketing and strategy consulting crowd not nerdy enough? Because from a business perspective, this should already be there. And I am not talking slide share, I am talking about sharing slides. http://readwrite.com/2014/03/26/open-source-development-business-managers-users-linux-foundation-study#awesm=~oA67DroYHVLxB9

I have had a ton of smartphones, a fitbit, a jawbone up and currently use a pebble smartwatch. SMS and Email, Pedometer and sleep tracking, and all of this from my wrist is pretty cool. But I would also love to be able to open doors, start cars or login to services with the mere presence of my watch and say, if we don't have biometrical proof the watch is at MY wrist, my phone (and yes, someone could steal both from me, but they could also steal my key, or keycard, or whatever). Here's another wristband with an interesting offer: login services. Might try that one day. http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/31/passwordbox-partnership-lets-the-nymi-ecg-wristband-log-you-in-anywhere-on-mobile/

Mar 29, 2014

Eat24? Doesn't matter if you don't know them. A) you might remember the viral thing about advertising on porn websites. Yep, that was them. B) they still have great writers. C) the reasons why they leave Facebook are interesting to anyone who runs a fan page. And familiar, of course.

I will never get this: the problem with software in cars is that cars are built to last 10, 15 years at least. Software is built to last until the next deployment, like: in a minute. Wouldn't it be smarter to offer a display that can mirror (airplay or chromecast style) your mobile phone and then offer everything else as apps, like in this case a highly customizable 'Audi TT cockpit app', and you could then update all that stuff over the years? http://feedly.com/k/1gC9ZVU

I never really understood Twitters product strategy. And it is always a relief when people who I consider to be among the smartest and sharpest when it comes to digital business share that view. In this case it's John Batelle who talks about Twitter's Signal to Noise problem for several years now. BTW, You should look up his blog and visit it frequently. http://feedly.com/e/DIn4T0OA

A headline i read today, won't remember where. But I like it and it was reason enough to dig deeper, found this cool PDF. I must admit I haven't read the whole document (link below), but sometimes I feel like stuff that I called science fiction yesterday can become a reality today. Internet.org is one of these organizations that may contribute a lot to it. Facebook has a vital business interest in this, yes. So what? Better to connect the world for business than not connecting it at all. The landscape in this document contains far too many white (unconnected) regions. https://fbcdn-dragon-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/t39.2365-6/851574_611544752265540_1262758947_n.pdf

Or lets say lower than I expected. According to a PEW study, 30% Of Facebook users are consuming news, but it’s mostly “incidental” consumption, and 73% of those news are celebrity, yellow press and such. Then again, as always, you have to look at how the study was conducted. And if you ask people if they use Facebook to read news, many might say 'nope' while following 10 newspapers and 8 magazines and liking every story.http://google.com/newsstand/s/CBIw2eTtoBo

I never thought much of Klout and also think that 200mn for a company with approx. 10mn revenue and no profit is too much (esp. when they're not in a scale business per se like selling software licences), but this Business Insider Story how Lithium acquired them is a good read.

Mar 28, 2014

We have seen that with Korean and Chinese No-Name (at least to us) devices. And ever since anyone dreamt of a 47" smartphone in his living room we all new Google TV would be dead. And I don't know how this interplays with Chromecast, but I know that whenever this becomes a reality, it can become very exciting. TechCrunch

I will believe it once i can buy a product. A few years ago, I was super excited about Google's announcement about android@home, since I believe that nearly every not 100%-dumb device will have to run on some kind of operating system, and Android could be just the one to ensure that they can all talk to each other. But after the big announcement of android@home, nothing came. Let's see how the wearable thing will develop (ReadWrite).

You sit there with Netflix, Schmetflix, Youtube and Schmutube and still don't know what to watch, while you know there are thousands of hours of video content out there that you would LOVE - if you just knew what it is. Some people think about this (VentureBeat).

Obviously the viral strangers kissing video added 14.000% to sales (Buzzfeed). Even if you come from a super low 5 shirts a week level that is remarkable. The disappointment after learning it was just advertising obviously was not so significant.